Your thought would be erroneous, then.
Whine whine whine, Why don't people use open source software?!? Because it sucks moldy donkey balls.
I only visit Polish warez sites for the video drivers.
Personally, I’d have they use Google Docs, but there is a pretty simple solution to your problem. Have your students do a Save As and select Microsoft Word as the format. It won’t be compatable with .docx, of course, but you will be able to read it with no problem if you have an older copy of MS Office. Or have them Save As into .PDF format, and you can use Acrobat to read their work. ETA: You can also have time go into the settings and change the default format to whatever you like, so that it will automatically save to that format in the future, instead of the OO default.
I have a number of schools who are my clients and they use OO all the time. I’m trying to ween some of them to either go the Google Docs route, or to realize that they can get MS Office dirt cheap on a state purchasing contract, but some of them just like OO (no idea why…I think it’s pretty bad, to be honest).
-XT
Maybe you should spend 90 seconds installing the Office Open XML compatibility patch for Office <= 2003?
I’m not familiar with any specific programs, but there are tons of software available that handle employee scheduling. Here is a link to a review of 10 software packages of varying prices.
I’ve gotta say, you’re a bit fuck’n whiny, demanding that other people make you enterprise-level software for free. OSS replaces million-dollar pieces of software at our office, but I don’t get all pissy just because I have to pay Stimulsoft for a decent reporting engine.
OP synopsis: I want to do a particular thing, I don’t want to pay for it, and the free tool I tried didn’t work. Therefore, open source software sucks!
The fact that it took you two wasted days before realizing it wasn’t gonna work for you speaks volumes…just sayin’…
Naw. While I agree with your over all theme there, I don’t think spending 2 days to figure out that something doesn’t work is really any indication of anything, one way or the other. I’ve wasted more time on that only to discover that something just won’t work. And, less you think ‘well, that’s YOU XT…you are probably clueless as well!’, I’ve seen plenty of the sharpest IT guru’s around spend weeks beating their heads against the wall, only to realize that much of their effort was wasted as whatever they were working on just wouldn’t work (or, conclude that they were idiots, and there was an easier way after all).
That said, the basic premise of the OP is flawed…there is plenty of open source software that is very good. You can’t make sweeping claims about a whole category of software based on one failed experiment…especially when the product we are talking about here is Open Office. 
-XT
I can’t say this for open source, but some freeware can be amazingly good, compared with expensive shrink-wrapped counterparts. I was very happy with Avast! Antivirus, because Norton was bogging down my system like you would, in fact, believe if you’ve ever had Norton. Also, without the strain of Norton running on my notebook, I hardly ever need to use the cooling pad anymore.
Not without a tad of irony, I eventually upgraded to fee-based antivirus and internet protection on three computers for a year. But everybody’s happy, so it’s a good type of irony, if that’s what it is. A good freeware product will bring people running to buy your other products.
Every single one of you motherhubbards who are bad-mouthin’ Open Source should be forced to only use Opera or IE for your internetting.
Oh, hell yes. I’ve spent longer than that myself on particular things; trying things out, tweaking them, diving into the source (if available), etc.
But when things don’t work out, I don’t blame the product that I’m not paying for. And I don’t open a bitchy thread on a message board. And I surely don’t try to redirect the blame I deserve for not doing my own damned research and due-diligence by whining about people who deserve better, claiming that they’re the unprofessional wankers.
What a fucking tool.
But the tool is free…the meta irony…it burns 
And you are right, not all open source software sucks, but Open Office sure has a weak Database component. And since this is the main office productivity package in open source, it really does need to be better. If people can’t do what they are accustomed to doing with products from Microsoft, they are never going to switch.
And again, I didn’t choose the package, that is what they use at this place already, for the Word Processor and Spreadsheet, and it meets their needs for that, or so I assume.
But a good RDBMS should allow you to do what I am doing, and it falls down badly there.
I have MS Office on my laptop provided by work that my company paid for. For my home computer, I have OpenOffice.
While it is true that I would rather have MS Office at home also, there is a HUGE difference between hundreds of dollars and free. I have never had a reason to use Base at home, but I regularly use Writer, Calc, and Impress with very little issues.
I have opened up work documents at home using open office, and they seem to transfer over just fine. The only issue is with the new formats. As long as I save as an Office 2003 Document, I’ve had no problems.
Of course I’ve never used Base, but for what I do at home OpenOffice does the job.
ETA: After hitting submit, I though of another issue with OpenOffice. I can’t password protect a file and then save as an office document. For some reason, the password doesn’t get saved.
Yes, I have had good experiences with Writer and Calc as well, but that is relatively easy to do. For database work you need something powerful and robust, and no fooling around. It seems from what I have experienced, and what others have said in this thread, that Base is the weak link in the package. I wish they would beef it up and give Redmond a run for their money…
And again, I realize there is good open source software, I just wanted to make a provocative pit thread title to attract people into the thread and get the ball rolling. Mission accomplished! 
Ah, so you’re just a douchebag. Oh, I’m sorry – a professional douchebag. At least we can say that since you get a paycheck, you’re not a financial drain on society.
I haven’t done any serious database work since not long after Microsoft [del]ruined[/del] bought FoxPro. Furthermore, the parts of OO that I use all work as advertised (and I’ll note here that the .docx format has been supported as of version 3.2; how well, I don’t know, but I’ve had no issues opening the few docxs I’ve been sent).
Perhaps Base really is a piece of shit; I’ll assume that you’re only mostly (and not completely) inept and can at least semi-accurately make that call. However, with the qualification that my DB knowledge is really out of date, this much I believe – Access, Base, FileMaker, or just about any “office productivity” database software “sucks moldy donkey balls”. These are toys (or were last time I checked), not serious database packages – the very point of their existence is to avoid having to deal with a full-fledged database package.
My expectation is that most open source DB guys aren’t at all interested in desktop database work, when postgres and MySQL are right there, so the talent pool of people interested in hacking on Base is much lower than the pool of folks working on Writer or Calc.
I mean, I’m a database guy, and by my standards Access and Base are huddled together at the “wuss” end of the spectrum, “call me when you can handle tens of millions of records”, etc.
There is a Java API for SQLite: http://www.zentus.com/sqlitejdbc/
There are also Ruby and Perl APIs in the usual locations. Probably there is more, but those are the only 3 I’ve used.
I tried to tell them to send in pdf or doc, but they never remember. Their software of course automatically saves in docx.